Long Term Recovery From Stuttering
presented to the
2nd World Congress - International Fluency Association
August 22, 1997 - San Francisco, CA

My Story of Achieving Fluency: Progress Under the Surface and Over Time

Walter H. Manning, Ph.D., Professor, The University of Memphis

It's a good experience to be part of a panel like this. It
feels good to be connected by the experience this afternoon to the
people who have been on similar panels in the past as well as to
those who are here today. In some ways this opportunity represents a
milepost in a long journey towards fluency.

In 1977 I attended the panel on recovered stutterers at the
annual meeting of the American Speech-Language Hearing Association
that Steve organized. As I sat in the back of the room and watched
that panel of people who had "recovered" I could never have imagined
that I would b standing here today. At that time in my life, as a
result of treatment, I had gained some fluency. But, I continued to
avoid words and many speaking situations. I was far from recovered
and the fact that I was a person who stuttered was still a significant
handicap.

The formal treatment I received in my early 20s began to turn
things around. But it was only a beginning. Following my
graduation from college I had the good fortune to work with Gene
Cooper at Penn State University in the mid 1960s. The program was
essentially a stuttering modification program with a few twists He
called it Interpersonal Communications Therapy. I thought it was a
good program because the clinicians had a sense of direction. It was
also good because it brought together a comprehensive intervention
strategy and a group of clinicians who believe in the approach.

Reflecting on that experience now after 30 years in the field,
I've come to believe that it's important for clinicians to be using a
treatment strategy that is congruent with their beliefs and possibly
even their personality characteristics. Otherwise, it is difficult to
be enthusiastic. Another important factor for me was the timing of
treatment I received. I was at a time in my life where I was sick
to death of stuttering. I had reached a point where changing myself
and my speech was by far the most important thing. During junior and senior high school, even during college, many other things took
priority. As an adolescent I had been referred by some of my
classroom teachers for treatment. But other things were more
important to me and I simply wasn't ready to run, what I suspected to be, a long and difficult race.

But now I had completed college. I had been rejected by the
officer candidate programs of both the marines and the air force
because of my stuttering. That was in 1964 and many of my friends
were on their way to Viet Nam. It is true, I suppose, that sometimes
the fact that you stutter can be a blessing. Fortunately, a few
months later I was declared 4-F by the selective service because of a
high frequency hearing loss. I was a mess.

So I found myself at one of those nodes in life when I was able
to look around and seriously consider the possibility of change. I
began to accept the fact that I had a problem, a big problem that was
really in my way. This acceptance, I now realize, was the critical
first stage of change. It was clear to me that my stuttering was
the next big thing that I needed to attend to. I was ready to do
whatever it took. I didn't care how long it might take or how much
it would cost. I suspect that at that point I would have had a
good start toward fluency in any one of several treatment programs.
But I was fortunate to find a good program at a time when I was ready
to change. My willingness to change came together with clinicians
who had a comprehensive strategy, believed in what they were doing,
and were excited about the program.

Treatment helped me to understand that I had a choice. I didn't
have to be helpless in my stuttering. The clinicians helped me to
map my stuttering and the problem slowly became less of a mystery. I
began to see that there were some cause and effect relationships about
my stuttering and my response to it. I saw that if I avoided certain
words they became more powerful. And I began to realize that if I
could sometimes hang in there and resist forces such as listener
reactions and the time pressure to speak, I could begin to get a hand
hold on moments of stuttering and have some small victories. Rather
than always feeling afraid and helpless during stuttering, I began to
realize that I could sometimes vary and change my speech a little. I
found that I could stay with the stuttering rather than always
wanting to run away. I could even play with the stuttering and have
some fun with it. That is, I could change the form of my stuttering
and experiment with it, get some distance from myself and my speech,
even begin to see some humor in my situation. And, maybe most
important, I found that I could also change some of my attitudes
about my speech and myself.

As I said, treatment didn't completely fix me. The process of
change continued long after formal treatment was completed.
Important changes continued for another 15 to 20 years. It took that
long until I felt I was no longer handicapped by my speech. It took
that long before the likelihood of stuttering had little or no
influence on my decisions - decisions about talking to people.

I believe that's what recovering means. There may still be some
stuttering and maybe in some ways you're always going to be
recovering for the rest of your life. But more importantly, after
many years I no longer have to monitor my speech in most cases. I'm
comfortable with my fluency and I don't make decisions based on the possibility of stuttering. I could, as strange as it sounds, even
regard my stuttering as a gift. If you're a speech-language
pathologist, being a person who stutters can be pretty neat. Among
other things, your clients know that you've been on the trail and
that you have weathered some storms and that you've managed to
survive.

During my treatment, and especially following formal treatment,
I believe it was very important for me to do more than change my
behavior- the features of the stuttering that are on the surface. The
quantity of stuttering is often an absolutely terrible measure of
change and success. The quality of your speech, whether it's
stuttered or not, is a much better indicator of what is going on
under the surface. I also had to change the deep structure of my
problem, the way I thought about myself and my speech and what I
told myself about the experience of stuttering.

As you will hear many people on this panel say, decreasing the
effects of stuttering involves much more than changing the disruption
of speech flow or the impairment of stuttering. I think that it is
critical to alter the person's ability to respond to their situation.
To achieve long term success, you must also change the handicap, the
way you and your listeners react to and make choices about the fact
that you are a person who stutterers.

I believe that I could stutter more than I do and still be
successful and happy. I know many people who do that. But the fact
is I'm pretty fluent. Sometimes, however, I think about something
one of my clients asked me last year. He said "What if I become fluent
and then find out that I have nothing to say!" Sometimes that
happens. It could even happen here this afternoon. Maybe it has
already!

What I'd like to say in the few minutes I have left is how
thankful I am for the good treatment and good clinicians I was able
to experience. Never, when I was younger, even in my wildest dreams,
did I imagine that I'd ever speak in front of a group like his - let
alone enjoy it. I thought I had a much better chance of becoming an
astronaut.

I want to tell you how thankful I am that I am able to
speak fluently. I want to tell you that I hardly ever take my fluency
for granted. For many years I had things to say and I refused to
try. I refused to even consider making the choice to say them.
Perhaps even more basic, I had things to say and I didn't even know
it. It's like word processing on a computer screen- you don't know
what you think until you type it or you say it. And then those ideas
lead to new thoughts that you wouldn't have had otherwise. Because I
expended so much effort running from stuttering by avoiding
situations and substituting words, I frequently did not even know
what I truly thought.

I am so thankful that I no longer feel handicapped. As I have
said, that did not happen immediately, or for several years following
formal treatment. But that's where I am now. I rarely stutter-
maybe 2 or 3 times a month. When I do, I don't avoid, I' not likely
to panic, and I have confidence that I can repair the fluency break.
I won't say that it never happens, but it is extremely rare that I
consider avoiding a speaking situation or substituting a word because
of the possibility of stuttering. But the most important part is
that the possibility of stuttering rarely enters into my choices my
decision-making about living; about what to do or what not to do.

I am thankful that I can pick up a telephone and enjoy the
experience. I can say exciting things and communicate ideas and
feelings to my friends, my family, and my colleagues.

I am thankful that I can spontaneously banter back and forth
with people; tell jokes pretty well, ask questions at a meeting, and
be pretty effective in front of a group. I am thankful that I am
able to connect with strangers- people I never would have spoken to
and known before, on a plane, in a shop, or on the highway.

I am thankful that I have been able to take my thoughts and turn
them into fluent words during good times and bad. I have been able to
give eulogies in honor of dear friends, colleagues, and parents. I
would rather not do that sort of thing but I am honored and very
proud to do it well.

I am thankful that I can do what I am doing today, be an active
colleague with people I admire, people with whom I share the same
boat.

I'll conclude by saying that the news can be very good for
adults who stutter. Clinical research indicates that this is
certainly the case for children. But it's also possible for an adult
who stutters severely to eventually achieve a good level of fluency.
Even more important, it is possible for a person to decrease the
handicap of stuttering to essentially zero. Often it also happens
that the frequency of stuttering is reduced also. It's true that
sometimes these good things happen without formal treatment. But I
think that a good clinician who is genuine, enthusiastic, emphatic,
and sometimes demanding, can make it happen sooner and much better.
I believe that such a clinician, working with a person who is ready
to take action, can create the wonderful stories that you are
hearing today.